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Adios to El Tiempo, Rachel Maddow’s coup and other top stories


By Johnny Trlica

COMMENTARY: August of 1968 seems like a long, long time ago. I was a mere child of 12, growing up in small town Rosenberg. On August 1, the Houston Oilers scored a 9-3 pre-season win over the Washington Redskins in the first football game played in a domed stadium. I don’t recall that event but remember another one vividly because it struck a little closer to home.

On August 20, 1968, my father, who is of Czech descent, came home from work and was immediately drawn to the television news. Earlier that day, 500,000 troops, 6300 tanks and 550 combat aircraft from the Warsaw Pact, led by the Soviet Union, invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the liberation effort called Prague Spring. The invasion was shown on the nightly network news.

The rebellion was put down quickly but my father always felt proud of how the Czechs, though greatly out manned, had stood up to a much greater foe. The Czechs did not win freedom that year but the yearning didn’t die. In 1989, another uprising known as the Velvet Revolution ended Communist control of Czechoslovakia.

I learned that when something is important enough to fight for, you don’t quit because you lose a battle. You never give up the fight; the battle isn’t over. Perhaps we can apply that to today’s war on LGBTQ rights and human dignity.

Here are a few of the news stories we’ve been following on the Houston Rainbow Herald Facebook page.

El Tiempo makes way for mid-rise

Progress takes no prisoners. Popular Montrose eatery El Tiempo will serve its last margarita on July 1, reports Chron.com. The location at 1308 Montrose will close its doors at the end of the month to make way for an apartment complex, restaurant owner Roland Laurenzo said.

“After more than four years with a month-to-month lease, the landlord has determined that now is the time to build their long delayed mid-rise apartment project on the property,†Laurenzo said in a statement. All employees will be offered positions at other locations.

Right-wing Christian lunacy

You just can’t make this stuff up. We all know MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is a strong voice and has legions of followers, but is she capable of pulling of a coup? Yes, according to Christian broadcaster and conspiracy theorist Rick Wiles, reports LGBTQNation.com.

“America, you’ve been homosexualized. You’ve been Jewdy-ized. I’m just telling it how it is,†Wiles told viewers. “She (Rachel Maddow) was spewing out, last night, calls for revolution. She was telling the left, ‘Take a deep breath, we’re at the moment, it’s coming, we’re almost there, we’re going to remove him from the White House.’ We’re about 72 hours — possibly 72 hours — from a coup.â€

“Be prepared that you’re going to turn on the television and see helicopters hovering over the roof of the White House with men clad in black rappelling down ropes, entering into the White House. Be prepared for a shootout in the White House as Secret Service agents shoot commandos coming in to arrest President Trump.â€

Wait. There’s more hysterics.

“That is how close we are to a revolution. Be prepared for a mob — a leftist mob — to tear down the gates, the fence at the White House and to go into the White House and to drag him out with his family and decapitate them on the lawn of the White House,†he said.

Needless to say, Maddow’s “coup†never occurred but maybe she is secretly forming an all-lesbian army?

CVS pharmacist refuses to fill transgender woman’s prescription

It started with a baker refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding. A CVS pharmacist in Arizona was fired for refusing to fill a hormone prescription for a transgender woman, reports The Hill.com.

Hilde Hall wrote, “He did not give me a clear reason for the refusal. He just kept asking, loudly and in front of other CVS staff and customers, why I was given the prescriptions.†Hall wrote that she was “embarrassed and distressed†and almost started crying in the middle of the store.

“When I asked for my doctor’s prescription note, the pharmacist refused to give it back, so I was not even able to take it to another pharmacy to have my prescription filled,†Hall wrote. “I left the store feeling mortified.â€

The pharmacist has since been terminated with CVS noting the pharmacist violated the company’s policies and “does not reflect our values or our commitment to inclusion, nondiscrimination and the delivery of outstanding patient care.â€

Raising the dead

The trend toward reviving dead or cancelled shows continues. LGBTQ fave Buffy the Vampire Slayer is getting a reboot with a black woman in the lead role this time around, reports Vox.com.

It’s been 21 years since the original premiered with Sarah Michelle Gellar in the title role.

Neither stars nor a debut date have been announced.

On a related note, the CW network is developing a series based on Batwoman. The character will be a lesbian in the series. 

Johnny Trlica is the manager of the Houston Rainbow Herald Facebook page, your source for the latest LGBTQ news and information. Contact him at [email protected].

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